Eoin

@LightlySalted There's been about a dozen of these in various forms and flavours, including a few handhelds, but yes, all of them have been low-quality.

The hope here should definitely be for superior emulation.

I'm not sure how likely it would be for the game selection to improve though - these machines did have some decent line-ups (though AtGames put "original" games onto it to inflate the numbers, there was a reasonably comprehensive range of Sega games included, plus some relatively big third party names). I think this is probably going to have a selection of games that looks very familiar.

@Boardwise No, the versions of the Mega Drive already produced by AtGames have working cartridge slots which accept Mega Drive cartridges.

However, those existing machines suffer from emulation problems, most notably having extremely poor audio emulation.

This is why there's some hope that this new machine, with the promised "different emulation" and "additional features" referred to by the article, will improve on the existing machines, offering better emulation and keeping the cartridge slot.

The design shown by Sega only has a cosmetic cartridge slot, which was taken as a sign that the feature was likely to be removed, but as the article clarifies, versions of this machine sold in "other territories" (outside of Japan) will retain a working cartridge slot.

That's what Molhoy means - we already know that the cartridge slot won't be "only for show".

That was never really in doubt anyway, but confirmation of it should mitigate a lot of concern over how well the game has aged. The original Shenmue was forced into a weird control system by the Dreamcast controller and for some reason this system was kept for the Xbox version of Shenmue II. Time has definitely not done the Shenmue control scheme any favours and the ability to use a more modern scheme will make it a lot more accessible for first-time players.

Imagine going back in time 10 years and telling people that the new Metal Gear Solid game, in its opening week, sold barely more than the second re-release of Shadow of the Colossus did in its third week.

It's time to stop labelling things like this as a "microtransaction". It's not, not really. The idea here isn't to get people paying a small amount for an in-game benefit - the price is a substantial fraction of the full price of the game for something that can't be considered to be anything other than basic functionality.

at the very core we must always build on a foundation of player choice. That might be the choice of whether a player engages in a particular mode or not; that might be whether a player decides to grind for something or not.

Perhaps they should learn that repeatedly running into the same shitstorm will just get them repeatedly covered in shit.

The constant microtransaction creep in games like Battlefront 2 means that nobody believes that "player choice" is at the centre of these decisions. Publishers are adding microtransactions for their own financial benefit and for no other reason, and it would be better for them to just admit that than to keep repeating vapidly transparent lies.

In this particular case, I hope Deep Silver acknowledge, at least internally, that they share the blame for the failure of Agents of Mayhem. The game itself doesn't seem to have been anything special, but it was also let down by unclear communications and a lack of promotion.

Anyway, I hope all affected land on their feet. The games industry should certainly be able to find a place for the people behind the last few Saints Row games.

The argument that it's just there as an option for players who want it is total bollocks and it's a shame that people keep using it.

If you want to give players an option to progress faster, great. Put it in. For free. Let them click through a few disclaimers that it'll change the game experience and it might not work as intended.

If you put in a loot box system and it requires money, then it's there to earn money. That's what it's for. So developers/publishers should say that, and stop pretending that they're doing us a favour by allowing us to give them money, out of the goodness of their hearts.

@MrTomFTW I think the d-pad is intended to target old Xbox fans who think that the d-pad on the Xbox One controller is too good, and yearn for a return to the days of cack-handed idiotic d-pads designed by people whose experience with d-pads was that they'd seen a blurry picture of one on the internet once.

I get that Mario Kart isn't meant to be based purely on skill. I mean, that's obvious and it's been obvious for a long time. The game gives chances to people to recover their position and that, as a concept, is fine.

Surely there's such a thing as overdoing it though?

I mean, I think most Mario Kart fans would have agreed that the item balance was either tilted too favourably towards people in lower positions, or else just about fine. I don't recall seeing many people demanding that the scales be weighted even more heavily in favour of people in lower positions getting good items, yet that seems to be exactly what's happened here.

Can we try to avoid using the word "lost"? The view that refunds are a "loss" plays up the arguments of those who oppose their existence.

We know how many times the game was refunded.

However, we don't know how many people bought the game because a refund option was available, and then refunded (no net loss/gain to the developer) and we don't know how many people bought the game because a refund option was available, but then didn't refund (net gain to the developer).

There's therefore no way to say what effect refunds have had on this game from a financial perspective, and, to the developer's credit, he himself doesn't appear to be describing that money as "lost".

@-DoGMeaT- I'm unsure why you think I "cheer" a delay. I am simply happy that since the developers think that they need more time, that they feel they're able to take that time instead of pushing the game out earlier.

I want Shenmue III to be as good as it can be, rather than releasing in 2017.

You're allowed be disappointed when a game is delayed, if that's how you feel. I, however, do not feel that way and I am not sure why you'd be surprised at that. Questioning the feelings of others is just weird though.

@Kain1 The original game had a PEGI 18 rating as well. The description on PEGI's site says it contains "Extreme violence - Multiple, motiveless killing - Violence towards defenceless people", which, from what I remember of the game, is a fairly accurate assessment.

Okay Ubisoft, after years of waiting for a PS4/Xbox One version of Rogue I've gone and bought it on Xbox 360 because of this, so now you're free to announce Assassin's Creed Rogue Remastered for release next month.

I'm glad that's cleared everything up. The game isn't going "free-to-play", it's just moving to a revolutionary new model where you can play it for free. That's an important and obvious distinction that Randy has made there, in the face of journalism so incredibly "reckless" that we're lucky that nobody died before the correction was issued.

@glenmallows Age ratings potentially explain the lack of RE7 and Until Dawn from the disc (and maybe a few others, I'm not familiar with all the games), but that still leaves several games on the US disc that could be added to the European disc, such as Job Simulator, Gnog, Harmonix Music VR and Rez Infinite.

This is a shame. It's never nice to see jobs lost in the industry, and Buzz was great. There wasn't much like it and even though it was a simple idea, they managed to add new things like the quiz creator in later games. It was one of the few games that I've seen that you could hand to someone and they'd just get it, even if they had little or no previous gaming experience.

I was kind of hoping that sometime soon there'd be an announcement of a PS4 version that used a smartphone app to play. It's a simple enough game that I think there'd be a good market for a cross-platform PS4/PC/Android/iOS game, of Buzz or of something like it.

At least Comcept can console themselves with the fact that there's pretty much nothing else that can go wrong with this game, largely because of the fact that they have diligently worked through the list of every possible problem that a game can have.

@Danj Yes, same for me - everything that I've checked that was Prime-only is now available again. Amazon appear to have decided that allowing people to give them money is a good idea, and changed their minds.

This isn't an overnight change. Games have gradually been going Prime-only for a while now. I had Far Cry Primal in my basket for a while and noticed that it was Prime-only on April 8th.

This is properly shitty behaviour from Amazon. It has severely reduced my goodwill towards them. I have no desire to join Amazon's special little club, and them trying to artificially create incentives to join is not going to change that.

Still, the change is notable for the worrying precedent it sets and because it appears to be targeting a very specific section of its customer base - those who play video games - at least initially.

Just to be clear about this - it's more than just video games. You can find examples of Prime-only products in many different product areas. It's Amazon being shitty to everyone, not just gamers.

Platinum coins can be redeemed against a non-personalised selection of discounts, games, themes, and Miitomo items. Gold coins can be redeemed against a separate non-personalised selection of discounts, games, themes, and Miitomo items. Discount personalisation is planned, for some indeterminate future point.

Platinum coins expire after six months. Gold coins also expire after six months. When you spend coins, the oldest are spent first.

Platinum coins are split into normal platinum coins and Miitomo platinum coins. Normal platinum coins work on My Nintendo only. Miitomo platinum coins work on My Nintendo and in Miitomo. This will also be the case for other Nintendo mobile games - normal platinum coins will not work on Nintendo mobile games, which will seemingly have their own platinum coins that work in that game and on My Nintendo.

Miitomo platinum coins on mobile devices are OS-specific. Miitomo platinum coins earned on Android cannot be used on iOS and vice versa. This will almost certainly also be true for future Nintendo mobile games.

Missions and rewards can both be regionalised, so performing actions might result in getting different amounts of coins depending on where you live, and the rewards that you can obtain from these coins will also vary (and already do).

The pricing problem for Oculus is that something can be both "cheap" (as in, sold at cost or below) and too expensive (as in, the price is still higher than the maximum price that most of the target audience is prepared to pay).

The classic example in the games industry is the PS3, which was sold at a large loss - with Sony making sure to stress the value of the machine compared to similarly capable devices - but which struggled for the first few years because it was too expensive for most people.

This is why the argument that "you get a lot more than spending $599 on pretty much any other consumer electronics devices - phones that cost $599 cost a fraction of that to make" falls totally flat. Aside from the fact that you can buy perfectly capable just-below-flagship smartphones for half the quoted price, even a US$600 phone is insane value compared to the Oculus Rift - not because of the component cost, but because of the immense suite of functionality that comes with any modern smartphone.

Whether Oculus/Facebook are making money on the Rift or not is relevant to their business model, but it's not going to affect how people view the price. Someone who is prepared to pay (for example) €400 at most for Virtual Reality is not going to pay €700 (+ shipping) just because it costs Oculus that much to sell the Rift. Nobody is looking at the Rift and thinking "well it's definitely US$600 worth of electronics and optics and plastic and wires so I'm buying it" - everyone is matching the price against what they are personally prepared to pay for a VR headset.

So here's the market cap of various other (bigger and publicly listed) companies in the industry (not including stupidly huge companies that do vast amounts of business outside games, like Apple, Disney, Warner, Sony, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Tencent):

Those aren't the prices Activision Blizzard (or another company) would have had to pay for those companies - King's market cap is "only" US$4.7bn, so an acquisition of the companies above might realistically require ~20%+ more than the market cap.

The price that Activision Blizzard paid for King, could (potentially, in a non-hostile acquisition) have bought pretty much any company in the console industry except for console manufacturers, EA, and companies attached to media giants like Disney and Warner. The Activision Blizzard valuation of King at US$5.9bn means Activision Blizzard think that King have the approximate value of Ubisoft and Take Two combined.

- No single-player
- Frame-rate varies between 60FPS and 30FPS
- Features removed from multi-player
- Front cover of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions has been changed from "emo soldier image" to plain text saying "BUY THE REAL VERSION NEXT YEAR" (the back cover just says "WE DON'T LIKE YOU")
- graphics are wireframe-only on Mondays through Thursdays
- one in 15 boxes contains live bees (compared to 1 in 30 for the PS4 and Xbox One versions)

It isn't though. If you move house and need a new internet connection, you lose it (for days or weeks). If someone at your ISP spills coffee over the wrong thing, you lose it (for however long it takes to fix things up). If (when) EA decide to release a new Need For Speed, you lose it (forever).

Star Wars head honcho George Lucas decided he did not like the game's premise.

What I read about the game suggested not just that he didn't like the premise, but that he wanted it replaced with a nonsensical one that he invented on the spot with zero thought towards how it would work as a game or fit into the Star Wars universe.

The biggest vision shift, however, came from George Lucas himself. According to one source, Lucas took statues of Darth Maul and Darth Talon - a character from the Star Wars comics from Dark Horse - faced them toward one another, and declared, "They're friends!" When it was brought to Lucas' attention that Maul and Talon lived more than a century and a half apart from one another, Lucas reportedly suggested it could be a clone or descendant that players controlled instead of the original Maul.

As a PS4 owner, I'm happy that more people are going to be able to buy the console at this price. As someone half-considering an Xbox One purchase, I'm interested to see whether Microsoft will respond to try to keep their price advantage.